Boom.
Suddenly, I’m the guy who’s crying on the subway.
I love this poem because it reminds me that we all have a litany of different characters within us that make up our general character. Also, there are parts within us that sometimes express different kinds of wisdom in different kinds of ways, characters like the joker, the victim, the boss, the super hero, etc.
What are the different characters inside of you?
These separate parts are our internal archetypes and can be very helpful to understanding ourselves on a very important level.
For example, I had a profound experience once during a Yoga Nidra practice where I used the layered Awareness and systematic relaxation of the practice to source an archetype within me, the archetype of the Oracle or wise teacher. In this practice, a vivid visualization opened in my mind …
There I was sitting in a chair in the office of one of my favorite profs from college. He was leaning back in his chair thinking about something, rather, deciding how he was going to say what he wanted to say to me. As clearly as I’m hearing my fingers tap across my keyboard, in this vision, I could hear the squeaking of his chair as he leaned back, see the tawny grain in his desk between us. I watched as he scratched his beard. Then, looking at me sideways with a glint in his eye and a wry smile on his face, he broke the silence.
“You know … whatever you believe in, practice it every day.”
Boom!
Such a simple message with such profound implications.
I think about that message all the time. In fact, I have to remind myself that the image and message from my professor came from me, that it didn’t happen in real life. Regardless, the message is as valuable (or more) than if it had.
That’s an example of the power of leaning into an archetype. That wisdom existed inside of me and I needed to get relaxed and receptive enough to hear it.
Yoga Nidra can help do exactly this.
It helps us to relax into a conscious daydream state which is like a secret passageway to the roof of our ultimate consciousness. In this state, we can learn to see and appreciate all the intriguing and multifaceted parts of our being and learn what they have to say to our conscious mind.
Yoga Nidra facilitates conversations between our imperfect humanness and our perfect beingness so we can go back out into the world, zip across town on the 1 train, and see our life all as the miracle that it is.
Thanks 1 train and Timothy Liu for reminding me of this.
What a gift!
Now, I want to share with you another amazing thing that happened regarding archetypes. It happened yesterday, in fact.
It might involve you. …